The Word Of God According To His One True Prophet, Kirk Cameron

A few months back, a movie called Fireproof that no one in the movie business had even heard of suddenly premiered in the Top 5 list. Even the top movie writers like Nikki Finke acted like someone who just had their pants pulled down in public and couldn't figure out who had done it. It turned out it was a low budget Christian film that had been specifically marketed toward church group audiences and finally ended up grossing somewhere around 35 million dollars, a huge profit for a film that cost 500,000 dollars to make. The marketers had learned well the lessons of the Narnia films, that being the best way to make a profitable movie is to convince every Christian in the country that Jesus will cry if they don't see it. As a piece of religious propaganda, it is a rousing success but how is it as a movie?

In terms of quality, Fireproof is a typical contemporary Christian film. That is not a compliment. If the only Christian films you've ever seen are The Song of Bernadette or Passion of the Christ and you think this will be like those, your experience with Fireproof will be similar to walking into McDonalds and expecting a Big Mac to taste like a perfectly grilled piece of top sirloin. Hmm, I take that back. Big Macs can be tasty. I suppose the Fireproof Big Mac would be an underdone E. Coli burger that might taste good and won't necessarily make everyone who eats it sick.

The star of Fireproof is everyone's favorite B-list celebrity Creationism advocate, Kirk Cameron. Cameron plays Caleb Holt, a firehouse captain whose marriage is falling apart due to the fact that he's a complete asshole. In most failed marriages, at least some of the blame can be laid at the feet of each spouse but, in this case, it's pretty much all Caleb's fault. Like all assholes, though, he doesn't see it that way. He wonders why his wife, Catherine, doesn't appreciate the fact that he sits around the house all day and makes her do all the cooking and cleaning even though she works too. He insists on saving thousands of dollars to buy a boat even though her mother needs some expensive medical equipment. Oh, also, he spends loads of time looking at internet porn and can't see why this upsets her. To top it all off, he's pissed at her most of the time and they end up having those really scary kinds of fights where he backs her against the wall and screams in her face. I mentioned he's a complete, total asshole, right?

Thing is, he does want to save his marriage. Most of you reading this can probably figure out that he should do. He should tell her he loves her, talk to her about their problems, try to stop being so selfish, stop looking at naked pictures of other women and don't get into such a frenzied state that he scares the crap out of her. It can be a slow process but, with love and patience, it's possible. Well, not in this movie. See, Caleb's not just a selfish prick. He's a GODLESS selfish prick and the movie is quite specific that his marriage cannot possibly be saved without the direct intervention of Jesus Christ Almighty.

So, how will Jehovah reveal Himself to the former Mike Seaver? It turns out this His methods are similar to Oprah's. Caleb's Christian father convinces him to begin following the advice of a religious self help book called The Love Dare. In terms of advice, The Love Dare says pretty much everything you've ever read in every other self-help book ever written. You can read the same stuff in The Love Dare that you do in Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Star Trek. The twist with The Love Dare is that it's all Christed up with various Biblical Scripture quotes because only the All Knowing Yahweh can tell you to be nice to your wife, give her flowers, and cook her dinner. I'm assuming the most important Biblical verse for Caleb was, "Don't jack it non-stop to internet porn and then scream in your wife's face when she complains (Matthew 4:18)." Seriously, there's actually is a section in the book that says addictions to things like drugs, gambling and PORNOGRAPHY might just be hurting your marriage, something that makes your average person say, "Duh," but is like God talking through a burning bush to Caleb. Caleb needed a 2000 year old book to tell him that he shouldn't be a complete tool to the woman he loves.

To top all this off, Fireproof presents its message in a package of TV movie production values starting with the credits using the same font you've seen in every Lifetime movie ever made. Cameron himself brings a tear to Alan Thicke's eye by forgetting everything he learned in Growing Pains and overacting in a way that would embarrass your typical Richard III actor. The bad news here is that Kirk Cameron is the best actor in the movie. Everyone else reads their lines in a way that would get you kicked out of an eighth grade production of Our Town.

I feel sorry for Christians when it comes to entertainment. I really do. So many of you are told that even such innocent fare as Harry Potter promotes Satanism so your only choice is to find entertainment with some sort of official Christian seal of approval. This usually translates to the same stuff everyone else watches but with all the good parts stripped out of it. Occasionally you get something good but, for the most part, you're stuck with crap like Left Behind and The Omega Code. Compared to those, Fireproof looks like Citizen Kane.

Oh well, I can now get all smug over the fact that we secularists would never, ever make a hit movie out of a lame self-help book. For instance, the number one movie of the week was...oh...never mind.